I understand what you are saying Mark and thanks for the warnings and additional information, its useful for others. But I will probably stick with this circuit for this application.
As I said the current demand is probably going to be a maximum of 1.5 amps and that is intermittent, I am sure the LM338T will cope fine bolted on the heatsink I have fitted.
I have a finger which acts as a temperature sensor. That's warm means all OK, Touch for max of 5 seconds means that's working hard. a sizzle sound means it is probably about to blow if it hasn't already.
Unless of course it is a germanium device like an OC26 on a Z12, then it is panic as soon as it gets more than warm.
Mike
As I said the current demand is probably going to be a maximum of 1.5 amps and that is intermittent, I am sure the LM338T will cope fine bolted on the heatsink I have fitted.
I have a finger which acts as a temperature sensor. That's warm means all OK, Touch for max of 5 seconds means that's working hard. a sizzle sound means it is probably about to blow if it hasn't already.
Unless of course it is a germanium device like an OC26 on a Z12, then it is panic as soon as it gets more than warm.
Mike
